The Line of Duty

by Nichole Severn

  Lara lowered her weapon, closed her stance as she straightened. “Kill them and pry that casing from his cold, dead hand if you have to.”

  Gunfire exploded from inside the warehouse, the crack of thunder loud in his ears. Blood pooled in his lower body, cementing him in place. “Shea.”

  The first bullet sliced across the skin of Vincent’s injured arm as Lara’s men closed ranks around her. He took cover behind the driver’s-side door of his SUV and pulled the trigger. The officer who’d shot at him hit the ground as the rest of the Blackhawk Security team took position and returned fire. Adrenaline coursed through him and sharpened his senses. He tapped his earpiece. “Glennon, get me inside that warehouse. Now.”

  “Snipers neutralized.” The former CID special agent fired again. “I’ll clear you a path between the first and second cruisers straight ahead of your position.” The sound of rifle shots ricocheted off the surrounding buildings, and Glennon’s targets collapsed. Lieutenant Richards’s men shouted, crouching behind their vehicles as they searched the rooftops. One called into the radio strapped to his shoulder, but Vincent doubted the bastards would get an answer. “That’s your cue, Kalani. I’ll cover you until you’re in the building. After that, you’re on your own.”

  “Give ’em hell,” Sullivan said. “We’ve got it handled out here.”

  “Copy that.” Vincent pumped his legs as fast as he could as Glennon kept the path through the two head squad cars positioned in front of the main warehouse door clear. He jumped over an officer who’d collapsed to the pavement, then ducked to avoid the fist of another keen on keeping him from breaching the line. Swinging his elbow back, he slugged the SOB and kept running. Pain in his shoulder and thigh clawed for his attention, but the sound of those gunshots from inside pushed him harder. Fifteen feet. Ten. Another officer closing in hit the ground as Glennon kept her word to get him inside the warehouse. He slammed into the door, the rusted hinges detaching as the wood hit the wall behind it. Every nerve ending in his body caught fire as the scent of charred wood and ash filled his senses.

  Gun raised, he hugged the east wall as he heel-toed it toward the area where he and Shea had recovered the bullet casing the night before. Muted gunfire from outside punched through the sound of his own breathing. His heart pounded hard at the base of his skull as he took cover behind a blackened stack of pallets. Craning his head around, he spotted his former CO. “Give it up, Lara. There’s nowhere to run.”

  “Run?” Lara fired at him, splinters of wood exploding over his right shoulder. The growl of an engine filled the warehouse, and he chanced another look around the pallets. Brake lights darkened Lara’s outline behind her. “I built this organization from the ground up, Vincent. I’m not going anywhere, but I can’t say the same for Shea and her son.”

  * * *

  “IT’S OKAY, BABY. I’ve got you.” Shea leaned against Wells as much as she could as she tugged at the cuffs around her wrists. His soft hair tickled the underside of her throat. She set her cheek against his head as his screams filled the back of the van. She couldn’t hold him. Not with her hands cuffed to the anchor above her head, and everything inside her screamed that if she could get him into her arms, he’d be okay. They’d both be okay. The sound of gunfire was giving him anxiety, and the fact that he’d been ripped away from her ex-husband wasn’t helping. Who Lara’s men were fighting off, she had no idea. The police who hadn’t bought into the lieutenant’s ideals? Blackhawk Security? Vincent?

  The cuffs cut deeper into her skin as she used her feet to reach for the diaper bag Grillo had thrown into the back of the van before slamming the door in her face, but she had to push the pain to the back of her mind. The canvas slid across the van’s floor easily but fell to one side and spilled its contents. His pacifier tumbled from the bag. She pinched it between both boots and brought her knees into her chest to drop it beside him. He clutched it in his tiny hand and brought it to his mouth, but his tears hadn’t dried. “I’m going to get us out of here. I promise.”

  The driver’s-side door slammed shut, and Grillo started the van’s engine.

  No. Sitting up, she tried twisting around to see out the windshield, but the angle only made the cuffs cut into her deeper. The gunfire outside had thinned. No more than a few shots here and there. Had Lara’s organization succeeded? Shea kissed the top of Wells’s head as the van lurched forward. She caught sight of the white metal handle she’d pried loose before Grillo had brought her to the warehouse. He hadn’t seen it when he’d thrown the diaper bag in, and she straightened. “Where are we going?”

  No answer.

  A bullet dented a section of the van’s back door. Wells’s cries pierced the ringing in her ears again, and she tried to bring him in closer but couldn’t reach him. She had to get out of these cuffs. Someone was still out there, and she found herself wishing it was Vincent. He’d risked his own life for hers. He’d given her a glimpse of real happiness, their cases taking so many layers of hurt and fear away that’d built over the last year. He’d shown her what real strength looked like, and that she could be the woman he’d imagined her being if she only believed it was possible. She wasn’t ready to give that up. She wasn’t ready to give him up. “Grillo, where are we going?”

  “I’ve got my orders, Ramsey.” Darkness fell over the inside of the van as they passed through the warehouse’s rolltop door at the north side of the property. The side that faced the water. “And no one is coming to save you or the boy this time.”

  “What do you mean?” Panic rose in a hot rush. She kicked at the van floor, but her heels only slipped along the surface. “You said you were going to have him adopted. That he’d get to live out the rest of his life with a new family.”

  “Change of plans,” he said, the weight of his responsibility in his words. “Boss doesn’t want any evidence left to come back to haunt her.”

  “No.” She pulled at the cuffs as hard as she could, biting back her scream as the metal ripped across her skin. She turned around toward him. “Please, don’t do this. Please. You can have me but let him go. He doesn’t deserve any of this. He’s just a baby—”

  The driver’s-side door flew open, a rush of salt-tinted air filling the van. Her hair flew in chaos around her face a split second before a hand reached in and pulled Grillo from the driver’s seat. His scream was silenced as the van’s back tires rolled over something solid. The officer’s body? Vincent climbed behind the wheel and slammed his foot on the brakes. Her heart was full enough to burst.

  “Vincent!” His tangled mass of hair penetrated through the mesh as he tried the brakes again, but the van didn’t slow. Something was wrong, and her stomach sank. Realization hit. Oh, no. “Vincent...”

  “Bastard cut the brake lines and disabled the button to take the van out of cruise control. Looks like he was going to ditch the vehicle on the way to the water.” He hit the brakes again, a sea of blackness growing closer over his shoulder out through the windshield. They couldn’t swerve surrounded by rows and rows of steel girders, couldn’t stop without putting everyone in the van at risk. Vincent half spun toward her. “Shea, I’m going to need you and Wells to brace for impact.”

  “No! I can’t protect him with my hands in the cuffs.” Her heart launched into her throat as reality set in. Closing her eyes, she accepted the truth of the situation. He wouldn’t have enough time to save them both. Shea set her head back against the metal mesh, then turned her attention to her son. She committed everything about him to memory in the matter of seconds, the way his hair smelled, his big green eyes that matched hers, how his thumbs never properly straightened. Logan would have to make sure the doctor took a look at them when he was older. “I love you. No matter what your dad tells you or what you find out on your own when you get older, please remember that. You’re everything, and I will always watch over you.”

  Calm settled over her then, not the numbness she’d bec
ome accustomed to, but something lighter, warmer. These past few days with Vincent had done that. Because of him and the word they’d done together, she knew her son would grow up happy and healthy. The man she loved would keep Wells safe.

  Leaning down, she kissed Wells one last time and raised her voice loud enough for Vincent to hear. “When we started working those cases together, it was like I’d been pulled out from beneath a crushing wave. Our investigations were the only thing that got me out of bed most days, but if I’m being honest with myself, part of it was you, too. I wanted to see you, to be around you. When you requested me to work on the task force, you helped get me through the worst year of my life, Vincent. I don’t know how, but I know I’ll never be able to thank you for that. And it seems unfair for me to ask anything more of you, but, please. You have to get him out of here. Save my son.”

  Wells’s cries filled the inside of the van once again, and she couldn’t fight back the tears as the weight of what she was asking drilled straight through her. She was asking him to make the choice to save Wells’s life over hers.

  “I’m not leaving you. We’re all going to walk away from this.” Shadowed brown eyes lifted to the rearview mirror. “I give you my word.”

  “You’re good at keeping your word. That’s why I know you’ll do this for me.” The tears fell then, and the pressure that’d been building for so long released. She’d fought like hell to gain some semblance of the woman she’d been before giving birth to her son, but because of Vincent, because of the work they did, she realized she wasn’t that woman anymore. She was more self-assured and stronger than ever. And she’d give anything to have her son grow up knowing his mother loved him as much as she did. “I know you’ll protect him.”

  Vincent’s voice overwhelmed the drone of the van’s engine. They were running out of time. The dock was coming up so fast. “Shea, what are you—”

  She braced herself against the oncoming pain before breaking her right thumb. Her scream filled the cabin, scaring Wells into another round of tears, but she pushed past her urge to comfort him to do the same to her other hand. This time, she bit back the groan and slipped her hands free of the cuffs. Sweeping the metal handle she’d detached from the van’s breaker box in to her hand, she wedged it down into the small space between the mesh and the driver’s seat and pushed as much of her weight into it as she could. The metal gave way, but not enough to get her son to Vincent. She inserted her uninjured fingers into the slots and pulled with everything she had left. The bolts around the edges of the mesh held tightly to the van’s frame, but she’d created a hole big enough to get Wells through. Scooping her son into her arms, she kissed him one last time then handed him off, his small fingers sliding against her palm. “Get him out of here.”

  The van jerked up over the beginning of the dock. “Shea—”

  “Go,” she said. “Now!”

  “I’m coming back for you.” Vincent wedged the driver’s-side door open with his foot, those brown eyes she’d loved so much steady on her. In her next breath, he jumped from the vehicle with her son in his arms.

  She clutched the metal mesh as she watched her partner and Wells disappear beneath the surface of the water in the van’s side mirror. Then she was flying. A sea of black consumed the windshield as the vehicle launched itself over the end of the dock. The impact slammed her against the divider, her fingers automatically tightening in the slots as the cabin slowly filled with water. Her head ached where her face had met metal, slowing her reaction time. She’d saved her son and told Vincent the truth. He’d changed her life, helped her heal in more ways than she could imagine. Wells would know she fought for him and become the mother he’d deserved from the beginning. That was all that mattered.

  Murky water seeped through the mesh, and Shea forced herself to stand. She had maybe another two—three—minutes before her remaining oxygen escaped the cargo area, but she wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. The van hadn’t sunk entirely yet. There was still a chance she could escape. She stared straight up at the back doors of the van. The slick surface and her broken thumbs would make it hard to climb, but as Vincent had made abundantly clear, she’d never backed down from a challenge. Least of all given up. “You can do this.”

  Wiping her wet hands down her jeans, she used the wheel wells of the back tires for leverage. The water soaked her ankles now and was only filling the van faster. Her boot slipped off the wheel well, threatening to pull her back into the water, but she held on to a bracket that made up the frame of the vehicle with everything she had. Her feet dangled below her, the water climbing higher now. She just had to get to the back doors.

  A hard thud reverberated down through the frame, and she forced her head up as one back door of the van swung open. Strong, familiar hands wrapped around her wrists, and she couldn’t help but trust he’d carry her weight. Just as he always had. “I told you. We survive together.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Vincent pulled her from the water after their short swim to shore, careful of her broken thumbs, and into his chest. Red and blue patrol lights swept across her features as she steadied herself on the end of the dock. Long hair trailed over her shoulders as she studied the scene behind him. Sullivan, Kate, Elizabeth, Elliot and Glennon watched her and Vincent’s backs as a fresh wave of NYPD officers closed in on the scene, Wells safely held in Elizabeth’s arms. In an instant, she stepped out of his hold and reached for her son. The boy was all too eager to see his mother again, a giant four-toothed smile crinkling the edges of his eyes as he reached right back for her. Vincent had protected him as best he could when they’d hit the water, determined to keep his promise to Shea, but that was when his team had arrived. With their help, he’d gotten to her before the van submerged. He could’ve lost her forever if it hadn’t been for the support of the men and women around them.

  “Thank you,” she said to the team.

  Sullivan nodded. “Like I said, we protect our own, Officer Ramsey, and Vincent has made it clear that list includes you.”

  “Damn right it does.” Wrapping one arm around her waist, he reveled in the feel of her body pressed against his, in the strong beat of her heart in her chest. Wells tugged on his beard with another gut-wrenching smile—his mother’s smile—and laughed. Not even fazed from their short dive into the river. Vincent couldn’t resist the wrap of the little guy’s fingers around his thumb. “It’s over, Shea. We don’t have to run anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t be here without you, without any of you.” She turned toward Glennon with Wells wiggling in her arms. Smoothing her hand over his nearly bald head, she readjusted her hold on him with a wince, and Vincent couldn’t help but smile at the idea of her being so affectionate with their own babies. If that was what she wanted. After everything she’d been through the past year, hell, even the past five days, he’d understand her hesitation to have another kid...or six. But there were more ways to have children than getting pregnant, and he couldn’t wait to see her in action. “But what about Anthony? Were you able to find him?”

  Glennon’s smile broke through the tension of possibly losing one of the best, most-trusted members of the Blackhawk Security team. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

  They piled into Vincent’s SUV, Shea and Wells beside him in the back seat. Because there was no way he was going to let either of them go. Not now. Not ever. She’d admitted she’d loved him seconds before the worst moment of his life—watching the van launch off the end of the dock into the river. And he loved her. If Shea gave them the chance, he’d spend the rest of his life ensuring they were happy, and that no one would take them from him again. He slipped his arm around her, bringing both her and Wells into his protective hold. Jade-green eyes raised to his as she relaxed her head back against him, and everything inside him heated.

  “Did Grillo...survive?” She stared up at him, the slightest quake in her voice.

  “Paramedics did
n’t get to him in time.” But Vincent couldn’t gather any sympathy for the bastard. Officer Charlie Grillo had tried to kill the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, along with her son and his team. The NYPD would be better off without a man like him in their ranks. “He’ll never touch you again. No one will.”

  Sullivan maneuvered the SUV back toward the warehouse where spotlights and a perimeter had been set up by NYPD. The low vibration of the engine through his body urged him to give in to the exhaustion of the past few days, to fall asleep with Shea in his arms, but he knew she’d spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder if she couldn’t confirm the nightmare had really ended. That was just the kind of woman and cop she was. The vehicle stopped beyond the officer rolling out crime-scene tape across the rolltop door where he’d watched Grillo escape with Shea and Wells in the van, and Vincent intertwined his fingers in hers. Tugging her from the vehicle, with Wells on her hip, he held the tape up for her to pass beneath, and they stepped back inside the warehouse where his entire life had changed course.

  Orders echoed off the cinder block walls as Shea slowed, her attention focused on the woman in the middle of the room. Cuffed and on her knees, Lieutenant Lara Richards and a dozen surviving officers she’d recruited into her organization waited to be hauled back to the precinct. With Anthony Harris, aviator sunglasses and all, standing watch. “You found him.”

  “Lara had me pinned down behind those pallets over there while Grillo took off with you and Wells in the van.” Vincent motioned to the stack, the memories of those few agonizing seconds where he’d given in to the fear of never seeing her again still so clear. He turned to her, fingers tracing a path over her wet clothing. Hell, he still couldn’t believe she was here, standing in front of him as though he hadn’t almost lost everything that’d mattered to him. “I didn’t think I was going to make it to you in time. I was willing to do anything—and kill anyone—to get you back, but before I pulled the trigger, Anthony caught her by surprise. Without him...” Vincent steeled himself against the emotions rushing through him. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d lost you again, Freckles. I love you. I want to be with you, make babies with you, wake up beside you every morning, even if I have to compete with this guy. I will do anything it takes to keep you two safe.” He framed her jaw with one hand. “I should’ve told you I had access to your department psych eval, but I promise you, I will never keep anything from you again. If you’ll just give us a chance. Please.”